Last Updated on 2 years by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: Hardik Pandya & fans slam Lucknow pitch for 2nd IND vs NZ T20 | Lucknow pitch comes in for criticism by fans
“Even the spiders don’t spin the web as much (in Lucknow), that was the story,” said Aakash Chopra on his YouTube channel. That pretty much summed up a lot of the reactions to the second T20I between India and New Zealand.
India skipper Hardik Pandya, along with many pundits and fans, was also critical of the Lucknow pitch dished out for the match. The hosts got back into the series with a very hard fought six-wicket win, reaching the paltry 100-run target with just one ball to spare.
“To be honest, this was a shocker of a wicket,” Hardik said to Star Sports in the post-match conference. “Two games… the kind of wickets we played on, I don’t mind difficult wickets. I’m all up for that but these wickets are not made for T20. Somewhere down the line the curator or stadium, whichever we play T20s, they should make sure they should prepare the game previously rather than having couple of games there. Other than that, very happy [with the result].”
Spinners sent down 30 of the 40 overs. It beat the previous record of 28 bowled in a T20I comprising of Full-Member nations, which was way back in 2011 between Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Also, no sixes were struck in the match. It foreced New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner to look far and wide for another spin option, even asking pacer Lockie Ferguson if he could send down some offspin.
I was trying to find them [spinners] from everywhere, I was asking Lockie [Ferguson] if he could bowl some offspin but yeah I think you don’t often see more than 12 overs of spin out there. I think maybe we bowled 16 or 17, so it’s definitely something different,” said Santner.
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Fans, pundits share views on Lucknow pitch for IND vs NZ 2nd T20I
In the end, India got home thanks to a 31-ball 26* from Suryakumar Yadav. It is quite the contrast to the kind of strike rate he showed in 2022, but he played the situation perfectly.
Here are reactions about the Lucknow surface, including some in support of the pitch.
The third and final T20I will be played at Ahmedabad on Wednesday. The winner will take out the series after New Zealand took out the first match by 21 runs. A clear evening is forecast.
